14: A chat with my "guardians"

When I woke up, I was in a cell. Surprisingly, the girl who I had a little argument with is nowhere to be seen, leaving me quite as if something was missing. It is not as if her presence was needed to be always there, and after the scuffle with her last time, she is not the person I would feel most comfortable talking with. However, I had been living together with her for six years, so her absence indeed feel strange.

The cell I was in wasn't too big, it was made of stone, and it had no windows, as expected. The only plausible exit was a door, probably closed, and with window 'ornamented' by steel rods.

Before me, there was a page, probably ripped off a notebook. It was probably filled with instructions to improve my performance in my new 'role'.

'An assassin...' I felt as if the worth of my job had been slightly increased, since before I was somewhat of a butcher, or Sword candidate. However, in the end, the job was still the same. Ending life. Killing.

I picked up the 'book' and began reading. I thought reading would give me a better understanding of my job, but to my surprise, it contained just some tricks with my cultivation base. They were interesting, and worth to be written down though.

Trick one: Invisibility. Using a light avatar or light foundations, you can make light go through your body, or simply make it not touch it, and so, you cannot be seen by others.

Surprisingly enough, this level of technology was unheard to me. At least, I don't remember the Lunar Kingdom having this kind of technology, however, it was useless to me, since I hadn't reached that stage yet. At most, I could try to think a less exigent trick when it came to cultivation.

Trick two: 'Soundless steps'. By using wind dots. You can transfer sound to other places. If you transfer the sound to a place you aren't, or simply to a place devoid of people, to avoid being found out.

This trick might actually very useful...

Let's say that you want to distract an opponent, you can make a loud sound on purpose to alert them, but make the sound reach them from behind. If they aren't experienced enough they will look back in fright, if they are, they won't and I will know that they have more experience.

That was the end of the page. Those two tricks were the only things that were written in it.

It was then, that I heared a voice I hadn't heard in a very long time...

"Hey, Azezal... Mind if we have a short talk?"

It was Kuro's voice, who had always been by my side, though I wasn't completely sure whether he was on my side or not.

To be honest, I wouldn't mind talking with him. After all, I was completely alone, and the only thing I could do was training, however, I didn't really think that training for some more minutes would become a matter of life or death.

"Sure. It isn't like I have much to do now. And if you wanted to sever my spirit, you would probably do it without asking, so, what is it?"

"Well... First of all, sorry for all that, we really went a little bit overboard, however... It seems like you don't put much trust in us, don't you?"

"Think it from my point of view. There are two people that can sever my spirit, and possibly kill me, directly or indirectly, at any moment. I think that you can't really blame me for not trusting you, can you?"

"Would you trust us if we told you our objective?"

'Their objective?' For a moment, I stayed silent. I knew they were in my bracelets, but I never knew why, or how they even ended up there. In fact, I don't think they knew how I ended up here...

"I cannot promise anything, but it would probably be easier for me to trust you two if you told me."

At that moment, a new voice rang. It was Shiro.

"Hey, Kuro, I believed you would only apologize. We didn't talk about telling him that!"

"It is needed if we want him to trust us. Without trust, our relation is quite unstable, however, if we could establish a relation of cooperation, maybe things would work out way easier."

"I know, but..."

"Will you tell me or not?"

I interrupted their chat. Kuro made a point, and if we could convince Shiro, things would go more smoothly. If I pressured in there, maybe he would give in.

Shiro sighed and answered.

"Do whatever you want... however, don't tell him about me."

"Understood. Well then, Azezal, first of all, we want to recover our real bodies, or get two antropomorphic vessels for our souls. Can you understand that much?"

"So you weren't bracelets that gained a consciousness?"

"Of course not... We were originally humans... Though our bloodlines evolved to a phoenix's and a dragon."

"Blood of a phoenix?"

It was then that I remembered what the emperor/king said. He once referred to Akatsuki as 'one who bears the blood of phoenixes'...

"Yeah, your 'friend' Akatsuki is a descendant of phoenixes... However, her blood is really impure. She is in no way an spontaneous born, which would make her pretty dangerous"

"Wait, wait, wait... Impure blood? Spontaneous Birth? Descendant of phoenixes? What's all that?"

"I can explain a little bit, if Shiro is okay with it... After all, his blood contains completely pure blood of phoenixes."

"Originally we were talking about our objectives, and I believe you have already done that. Information must be given out slowly but surely. If not, the subject to the info dumping will not be able to process all the information correctly."

"... You have a point."

After some silence, Kuro decided to accept Shiro's reasoning, ignoring whether I liked it or not, however, to be honest, if they didn't want to tell me, then I wouldn't ask until they felt like it.

"Sigh... Well then, shall I return to cultivating and all that?"

As I was about to begin cultivating, Kuro interrupted me.

"Well, how about I tell you some more tricks? Other than the ones in that page."

"How does an ex-human bracelet knows so many things!?"

"We were one of the strongest humans of our time! Even if the system has changed twice, we still belonged to the elite once! Maybe Shiro couldn't know much of the prior era's system because of... Fuck."

'The system changed twice? Why Shiro couldn't know much of the prior era's system? What was a 'System' to begin with?'

I was confused. Really confused. Terms I didn't know were being used and I wanted to understand. And what worst was that Kuro stopped speaking mid-sentence... I wondered why...?

"Kuro, have I never told you? I think I have. Many times. But let me repeat myself. You. Are. A. Fool. You always speak way more than you should."

"I AM SORRY! You know that withholding information was never a hobby... Wait, can't I tell him? It would help him get a better grasp of how the world got to this point."

"Too much info dumping is bad! I have already told you! If we saturate him then he won't be able to focus on what he has ahead! How understanding the world can help him if he can't even understand anything about his situation! About how he ended up here! We can't help him about that, the only thing we can do is give him advice and helping him with his current situation, instead of giving him information that he doesn't need at all."

'Uh...' I felt speechless towards the gold comedy that unfolded before me. I just stayed silent and saw if any more hints could be picked, and there were indeed some.

Hint number 1: Kuro isn't good at keeping secrets

Hint number 2: Kuro and Shiro DO NOT know about how I ended up like this, in other words, I probably knew certain pieces of information that they didn't, so they hadn't been awake, conscious, or aware about things before being held captive here. In fact, it is possible that they woke up between the moment I was held captive, and the moment I was thrown into a room with a rabbit.

In other words, it was plausible to assume that they didn't know about my parents, unless they knew them before my birth. 'Wait... what?'

I felt like something was off... Really off.

For starters, where Kuro and Shiro came from? How did they end up in my wrist? In fact, I remembered having them put on a very long time ago, but I couldn't remember very well that. Kuro and Shiro didn't seem like they could move around as bracelets as they wanted. Assuming that, it wouldn't be hard to believe I had them on from before I actually noticed them... I didn't think my adoptive parents had any heirloom, considering that the Lunar Kingdom was a relatively recent kingdom, and the empire would have never given anything to me, much less two 'former elites' that Kuro and Shiro were supposed to be... then... Did they come from my real parents? I was assuming many things for this theory, so I couldn't take it as true from the get-go, however, it seemed something relatively plausible... I decided to wait for more little pieces of evidences, since I really thought that thanks to Kuro, they would drop here and there as long as I talked with them.

I decided to get back at the topic in hand.

"Can you teach me the tricks already, please?"

"Well... I thought that creating an avatar of light in a short span of time would be really hard, so I thought of a different way of acquiring the same results. You have a foundation, or layer of space right?"

"Yes, I still have one on standby... why do you ask?"

"Well... it has its own inconvenients, but if you wrap yourself in a 'layer', or 'foundation' of space, you can isolate yourself from the space surrounding you, and furthermore, if you connect the layer to itself, you can make whatever comes through the layer to go to the other side. That allows light to travel through you, instead of just being a white thingy, since you would repel light, making you invisible. The only inconvenient is that you cannot breath, since in that independent space there is no air. That means that you will not able to breath for a long time. It would be for the best if you trained your pulmonar capacity to be able to hide yourself for long spans of time"

I had to admit, that was pretty amazing. I tried to wrap some air with a spatial layer of air and connected it to itself. It seemed that there was no difference, however, I poked at it, and I saw my finger as if it went through that space, as if it was disconnected. I could see the inside of the finger, which was separated and - Okay that is enough, I took back my finger and resisted the slight urge to puke.

"If you want to train, just avoid breathing for as much as you can, and then we will tell you how much time you lasted when you take a breath again."

Kuro told me that, so that I had another thing to focus on instead of the disgusting sight I had just seen.

And so, I spent the afternoon training my pulmonar capacity with Kuro. The week went by. At morning I ate and cultivated, at afternoon I did my pulmonar training and trained my body, and at night I cultivated it again until the somniferous gas came and knocked me out.

And so, a week went by.